"I am researching the extraordinary history of the West's relationship to Afghanistan over the past 200 years. It is a very complex, and sometimes weird, story. These are notes on some of the characters and episodes involved." A work in progress by Adam Curtis - Kabul: City Number One. Part One, and Part Two.
posted by robself on Sep 28, 2009 - 5 comments

The Archipelago of Fear. "International surveys show that the more people trust their neighbours, strangers, and their government, the more likely they are to help strangers, to vote, and to volunteer. If better streets, sidewalks, walls, and buildings all improve the ways people engage with one another, then the reverse should also be true: antagonistic architecture can corrode trust and fuel hostility. Kabul just might be a laboratory of toxic urbanity."
posted by homunculus on Dec 5, 2008 - 20 comments

Guy Kawasaki interviews Aziza Mohmmand. What’s the most inspiring story of entrepreneurship that you’ve heard in 2006? My answer does not involve two guys in a garage who sell their company to Google for $1.6 billion. No way...my answer is a woman who runs a soccer-ball factory in Kabul, Afghanistan.
posted by davar on Jan 8, 2007 - 6 comments

Paris to Kabul. They won't be the first, or the only to embark on such adventures, but Manu (photographer / technician) and Sophie (journalist) are on a great adventure from Paris to Kabul in a very small car.
posted by pwedza on Apr 29, 2006 - 6 comments

The Beauty Academy of Kabul is Liz Mermin's documentary about hairdressers from America teaching young women in Afghanistan how to beautify themselves. Could female self-expression and vanity be an impetus for more pervasive cultural transformation? In a related development, Nike has designed a sporty hijab for use by Somali volleyball players. Whether it's an improvement over traditional variations is debatable.
posted by mert on Mar 20, 2006 - 11 comments

We will act deliberately and decisively, and the cause of freedom will prevail. Now, watch this drive.
posted by 3.2.3 on Nov 8, 2005 - 35 comments

Afghanistan 1969-1974. Many photographs of the landscapes and people of Afghanistan as was. 'Searching the internet at the beginning of the year 2001 for "Kabul & museum" or for "Bamiyan" displays alarming news. This is why I'd like to put my old photographs of Afghanistan of the years 1969, 1970, and 1974 into the WWW to preserve a vivid memory of the treasures collected in the museum in Darulaman and of an Afghanistan as it used to be years ago ... ' (Also in German).
Related :- Lost and Stolen Images: Afghanistan, including a section on the Bamiyan Buddhas and some images from the Kabul Museum (via the Huntingdon Archive of Buddhist and related art).
posted by plep on Apr 9, 2003 - 7 comments

Car Bomb Rocks Central Kabul, Many Dead: "Two explosions rocked Kabul today, killing at least 15 people, sending panicked citizens running and causing serious structural damage in the Afghan capital, authorities and witnesses told CNN. Many were wounded [in the blasts], which took place near the Ministry of Information and Culture, but it is not clear if the ministry was the target."
posted by tranquileye on Sep 5, 2002 - 12 comments

The Lion of Kabul has died. He survived mistreatment at the hands of the Taliban and even lived through a grenande attack, but it was finally old age that put him in his grave. I'm hoping he's symbolic of the Afgan people -- that they will see their troubled times through to the end.
posted by Wildcat3 on Jan 26, 2002 - 7 comments

Homebody/Kabul Kushner play opens in New York, has controversial subject matter. "It's a mixed blessing to have written a play about a country with which one's own country has gone to war at the moment it opens"
posted by asok on Dec 19, 2001 - 2 comments

Northern Alliance Fighters Enter Kabul. It's almost over.
posted by tamim on Nov 12, 2001 - 75 comments

This is not what the travel agent told me Kabul looked like! Report in London times of British Muslim who went over to join the Taliban war effort and found out they were nothing but "lunatics and liars." Question: Should he be allowed back into Britain and if so, should he be tried for treason?
posted by prodigal on Nov 2, 2001 - 31 comments

He said the roof of the building was marked with the Red Cross symbol. Good idea. Maybe they should hire Jakob, he would tell them that the cross is ineligible and might be thought of as a target.
posted by tiaka on Oct 16, 2001 - 31 comments

A spy reports on Kabul and the preparations Not a piece to argue over but worth sharing, I hope.
posted by Postroad on Oct 7, 2001 - 2 comments

The Kabul Museum ...prior to its destruction in 1993. What's left of the exhibits is now in the hands of looters and their customers. Just part of the continuing sadness...
posted by waffleboy on Oct 2, 2001 - 1 comment

Kabul revisited (TOI photos by Siddharth Varadarajan) - The Times of India doesn't say more about this photo gallery.
posted by arf on Sep 16, 2001 - 7 comments

Explosions in Kabul. There are missles coming in Afghanastan. (Saving front page bandwidth, more inside)
posted by geoff. on Sep 11, 2001 - 23 comments

Archaeologists wonder where Afghanistan's antiquities have wound up, if they still exist. There is not much left to see inside Kabul Museum these days. Once a priceless repository of ancient Buddhist, Persian and Greek artifacts, during the civil war the museum changed hands several times and in the process was looted of nearly everything in the collection. Not only did Afghanistan's war claim 1.5 million lives, it also swallowed up the country's history.
posted by lagado on Dec 30, 2000 - 0 comments